Is Sindragosa too broken for the latest Hearthstone Tavern Brawl?

The latest Tavern Brawl, “Boss Battle Royale 2” seeks to answer that question. At least partially. Players select from nine different Hearthstone dungeon bosses, each assigned to their own Hero class and take to the battlefield:

Class

Boss

Hero Power

Warrior

Coren Direbrew

Pile On! 0 mana: Put a minion from each deck into the battlefield.

Shaman

Lady Naz’jar

Pearl of the Tides, Passive: At the end of your turn, replace all minions with new ones that cost (1) more.

The first edition of the “Boss Battle Royale,” which took place in January of 2017, was a big success with Hearthstone players and Blizzard posted the following results for each boss.

Seven of the nine bosses make their return in “Boss Battle Royale 2,” the top three from last time around, Grobbulus, Coren Direbrew and Lady Naz’jar included. Two new bosses make their debut in the “Royale,” as well — with one boss heads, shoulders and bony wings above the rest of the competition:

“Your pathetic magic betrays you!”

“The icy winds of Northrend will consume your souls!”

Sindragosa.

Third and final boss of the Upper Reaches in Hearthstone‘s Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion mission.

Former consort of Malygos; Aspect of Magic and leader of the Blue Dragonflight who met her untimely demise during the War of the Ancients; reanimated by Arthas, the Lich King himself to serve as Queen of the Frostbrood (the latter of which you can witness in what is probably my favorite Blizzard cinematic trailers of all time, the official trailer for the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion):

It stands to reason that World of Warcraft‘s most legendary frost wyrm is a force to be reckoned with in-game. But is she too powerful for this Tavern Brawl?

The following redditors from the Hearthstone subreddit seem to think so:

Don’t bother playing anything other than sindragosa. It counters minions to the point its autowin if opponent relies on them. If you play around passive with spells you risk getting bursted. I played it to 11 wins and only lost mirror matches. Won games without even playing single card against druid, paladin, and shaman. They just conceded after they realized second passive proc would mean they are out of board space

What makes Sindragosa so good? A synergistic Dragon-centric deck combined with a bone-chilling, passive Hero Power, Frost Breath, which transforms all enemy minions into dormant blocks of ice that cannot be removed when she’s taken down to both 20 and 10 health. The move severely cramps the opponent’s board space and can even render them moveless if they are without spells or weapons to equip. Sindragosa can close too; when taken below 10 health, her hero power changes to one that deals 2 damage.

TL;DR: Sindragosa is crazy powerful.

Get used to seeing these guys on your screen a lot if you’re facing Sindragosa.

Being one of the few bosses whose strategy doesn’t revolve around minion flooding, Professor Putricide, the Priest boss, seems a natural choice to counteract the Frostbrood queen. Unfortunately, the problem is compounded by the fact that Professor Putricide has a disconcerting bug associated with its hero power; according to Redditor Aripities, “Picked priest and got prof putricide. Apparently you can only have 3 secrets up at a time, automatically destroys the 4th for some reason? Did I miss something?”

You didn’t miss anything Aripities. As of this writing, the bug where a Priest Professor Putricide’s fourth secret mysteriously vanishes is still in effect — and Sindragosa remains dominant.

Patching… a Tavern Brawl?!

So what’s the best way to counter Sindragosa in this week’s Tavern Brawl? Will “Boss Battle Royale 2” be blighted by a glut of Sindragosa mirror matches? Should Blizzard make the Block of Ice card a non-dormant card with stats attached so it could actually be removed in some way? Should they step in and tweak a Tavern Brawl of all things or should we just suck it up and accept the mayhem?